Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (1864-1918)

Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (1 November 1864-18 July 1918) was a German Hessian princess who was the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia.

Biography
Elisabeth von Hesse-Darmstadt was born in Bessungen, Grand Duchy of Hesse, Germany on 1 November 1864, the daughter of Louis IV of Hesse and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom; she was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria. In 1878, her mother and sister died during a diphtheria outbreak, and she rejected her cousin Prince Wilhelm's marriage proposal that same year. She had several admirers during her youth, but she ultimately married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the son of her great-aunt, in 1884. The couple never had children of their own, and Sergei was assassinated by the SR Combat Organization in 1905. Elisabeth publicly forgave her husband's assassin Ivan Kalyayev, but she failed to convince Czar Nicholas II of Russia to pardon him. She then departed the Imperial Court and became a nun, founding the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow. In 1918, during the Russian Civil War, she was arrested by the Cheka and taken to Alpayevsk, where she, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich of Russia, Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Konstantine Konstantinovich of Russia, Prince Igor Konstantinovich of Russia, and Prince Vladimir Paley were thrown down a mineshaft, where the Bolsheviks threw brushwood on top of them and set it on fire, burning all of the royals to death.